


And All the While My Character it Steals

by thalialunacy



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-30
Updated: 2010-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-26 16:27:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thalialunacy/pseuds/thalialunacy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where they have bad hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And All the While My Character it Steals

**Author's Note:**

> **Summary** : Bad hair, bad times, bad communication. Good ending.  
>  **Disclaimer** : Obviously fictional content is FICTIONAL. Please, please don't sue me. Also, don't be hatin'. We just like the fuckin'.  
>  **Necessary references** : [Chris looking beadheady and disgruntled](http://pics.livejournal.com/thalialunacy/pic/0038d8kt). [Karl looking hawked and disgruntled](http://pics.livejournal.com/thalialunacy/pic/0038eskq). [Chris giving the finger to the paparazzi](http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_startrek/1333195.html). [Chris Pine's play, which opens tonight, June 30th 2010.](http://www.centertheatregroup.org/tickets/productiondetail.aspx?id=7706)
> 
>  **Unnecessary notes** : This basically is comment fic gone awry. It got written because a) of [this entry](http://community.livejournal.com/jim_and_bones/190399.html) at jim_and_bones and b) my laptop broke and my brother was asleep so I literally had nothing else to do. XB I figured out there's essentially only a five hour difference between LA and Auckland. I mean, plus a day but the important part is the waking up in the middle of the night thing, which isn't really that much of an issue esp if Chris is doing a show, like he is right now. OVERTHINKING, THALIA. And I KNOW Karl Urban said he doesn't own a cell phone. Pffffft. I don't buy it. I think he's just insanely private and intends to keep it that way. GEEKS LIKE TOYS, okay. FYI, I know shit about Quinto's house. Also, the end was totally stolen from a lil thing abigail89 wrote [here](http://community.livejournal.com/jim_and_bones/190399.html?thread=4087487#t4087487). The title is from a Mumford & Sons song called ['Roll Away Your Stone'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlYrOBvt9IQ). A nod to _High Fidelity_ and [this porn](http://www.rockettube.com/Hardcore-Gay-Porn/Liveguyz/28099/Tyler-And-Adam-Hookup-At-Onthehunt.html), lol.

_From: Karl Urban (2:15am)  
Saw some truly amazing pictures of you today._

 _To: Karl Urban (2:17am)  
Oh? Didn't know the PlayGirl had come out in New Zealand yet..._

 _From: Karl Urban (2:18am)  
Oh how the mighty have fallen. No, I mean the hair._

 _From: Karl Urban (2:18am)  
There's a mirror in your front hallway for a reason._

 _To: Karl Urban (2:23am)  
To mock me, trust me, I'm aware._

 _From: Karl Urban (2:25am)  
Hah, hah._

Chris can imagine Karl's laugh. It pleases him.

 _To: Karl Urban (2:39am)  
To remind me of my receding hairline and the capriciousness of youth?_

 _From: Karl Urban (2:46am)  
Shut up, pretty boy, and get a stylist._

 _To: Karl Urban (2:47am)  
A stylist can't change the fates, my friend._

He presses send and shoves the porch door open a little more violently than necessary. He washes his face, brushes his teeth, and crawls under the covers, done.

\---

The next evening, he flops on the couch, one leg bouncing, and picks up his phone. Then he glances at the clock. Final dress-tech got him totally wired and his fingers itch to press the button. It's dinner time there, though. He really shouldn't.

Fuck it. He punches the button.

"Pine," comes through after only one ring.

"Urban," he says in his best Kiwi imitation, emphasis on the 'ban'. He's gotten pretty good at it, if he does say so himself.

Karl huffs a laugh. "Hang on a minute," he says quietly, and Chris waits, listens to the shuffling as Karl steps outside, probably freezing because he's in the land where everything's backwards--actually backwards, instead of just _feeling_ backwards like Chris so often does--and also it's nearly July, and July is winter and if that's not enough for a poem, nothing is.

"I saw the picture," is Chris's opening volley.

Karl sighs dramatically. "Go ahead and mock me."

Chris smiles. He's glad Karl can't see it. "Did one of the boys get ahold of some gel? And then smother you with it?"

"Whatever gave you that idea?"

"The disgruntled look on your face."

Karl pauses. Chris breathes in where he'd normally breathe out. "Yeah," Karl says finally. "Yeah, that's exactly what happened."

\---

The voice is a rumble in Chris' 11am ear. "Hey."

"Hey," he replies, rolling over to smush his face into the pillow, the Blackberry solid against his cheek.

"I saw the pictures."

Chris grunts. Shifts. "Yeah."

"You know that just eggs them on."

Chris wants to press pause on the way Karl says 'eggs'. "I know."

"And they weren't even that close."

"I know, man," he grumbles as he rolls onto his back. "It was a dumb move and my parents already scolded me--three times, separately and then together--and it'd be nice if I didn't have to hear it from you, as well, okay?"

There's a pause. "Okay." Chris can hear water running in the sink. "Hey, break a leg tonight."

"Oh," is all Chris can say at first. Then: "Thank you." Chris presses his free hand against his eyes. "It's a great show. I'll send you a tape, if you want."

Another small pause. "Sure, yeah."

"Just don't watch it when the kids are awake."

"No, really?" Karl says wryly.

"Just saying."

"Yeah." Karl gets quiet. "Right, okay then. Bye."

Chris swallows. "Yeah. Bye."

\---

Opening night is just as expected. The Forum is crowded and the evening is warm and Chris is surrounded by friends. Friends that bore the paps, apparently, because they are surprisingly left alone.

But the second night. The second night they are _all over_ the theater and he can't figure out why, what the shit he did today of all days. He'd gotten coffee, he'd worked out, he'd come to work, he'd done the show, he'd walked out and they'd fucking swarmed him, fan and foe alike and as he squints against the lights and reaches for picture after picture with the Sharpie, he wonders for the millionth time what the fuck he's doing with his life.

Then the shouts change. They go from "Chris!" to "Zach!" and Chris has never been happier to see that hairy fucker in his damn life--until he sees who's standing next to him. He hears the photog next to him yell "Karl!" but it's redundant for Chris.The word is already echoing in his head, in his chest, everywhere.

He feels himself sweating as he shakes hands with both of them, the flashbulbs going bonkers and half his brain knows there's a Lewinsky/Clinton shot being taken in there somewhere but he ignores it. Fuck it.

Fuck them.

\---

Zach amicably hosts a half-dozen of them for an after-party. Chris pulls him aside in the kitchen. "I thought you were my friend," he half-hisses, "yet you spring this on me?"

"Hey, Princess, I didn't know! He just showed up!"

Chris eyes him, but before he can argue, they get interrupted.

"Oi, Quinto, where are you so I can--Oh." Chris twitches at how close Karl's voice is, feeling like a juvenile delinquent. Karl tips his empty glass at them then sets it on the island. "I was wondering if I could make a phonecall from your study?" He holds up his mobile. "The boys are waiting for a ring."

Chris feels his teeth grind. "Oh, God no," Zach is saying, "the study is a huge mess, you can't even find the floor right now. Tell you what, let me open up the porch off my room, okay?"

Karl nods. Chris follows them, and if either of them find this strange, nobody comments. Karl goes to the porch, Zach goes back into the party, and Chris is just finishing using Zach's amazing master bathroom facilities when he hears Karl's raised voice.

"I thought you had that worked out before I left!" Beat. "No, no I can't. You know my schedule isn't soft, for God's sake."

Chris stands half in the shadows, a little sick to his stomach but unable to move anyways.

More beats. "Fine. I'll have Janae call you. Draw up whatever papers you like, I don't care." He breathes out slowly. "As long as the boys aren't affected."

A few moments after he hangs up, he shakes his head with a rueful smile. "Sorry."

Chris blinks at him. So much for being subtle. "What for?"

"That you had to witness that." Karl looks into the distance and rubs the back of his neck. "That I didn't tell you I was coming. I just--" He glances at Chris again, then chuckles sardonically. "Yeah."

Chris doesn't hesitate. "No need to apologize." He walks over to stand next to Karl, mostly facing him, trying to understand. "Everything okay?"

Karl looks down. "You know the answer to that."

"Now I do."

"Yeah. Sorry about that, too."

"Don't be. None of my business."

Karl looks up. Looks at him for a moment. "Yeah, it is. It is your business."

Dark eyes hold onto his, push the meaning at him, and Chris feels the tug on his heart, on his gut. It urges him forward inexorably and as if pulled by a string, his lips end up on Karl's. Warm and dry like the night air.

\---

They allow themselves the luxury of going back to Chris's, allow themselves to reject the sterility and safety of a hotel room and choosing instead to step across a threshold and into a home. Chris piles Karl's clothing up on a chair and covers Karl with his sheets, with his body, because he knows Karl's not a transient, Karl's not a wanderer, and he wants Karl to know that this is where he can come. He covers Karl with kisses, too, lips cataloguing everything, before finally sliding into him, pulling them together, pinning Karl down and providing him an anchor, some solid ground.

He sucks a bruise onto Karl's neck as he thrusts in and out, then feels Karl's hand tighten in his hair. Their eyes meet, Karl's lips form the words, "So good, Chris... so good..." and it wells up in Chris until he can't hold back anymore, until he's pounding into Karl all the words he can't manage to say.

\---

And in the morning, Chris refuses to let either of them look in the mirror before they leave for breakfast with Zach, despite the monumental cases of sex/bed hair they're both sporting. "It's his fucking fault for scheduling it so early. Let him riot."

 _  
**FIN**   
_


End file.
